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Note that this story is only half complete. Oracle stalled development, made the bugtrackers etc private, and kicked out all of the contributors and tried to c

Note that this story is only half complete. Oracle stalled development, made the bugtrackers etc private, and kicked out all of the contributors and tried to commercialize the product at the time. The reason for Oracle "dumping" it to the Apache graveyard is that most of the "free" (as in unpaid) contributors switched sides to LibreOffice because of Oracle's hostile behavior towards the development community. And they donated OpenOffice because it was effectively a dead project for a couple of years. There's probably still some contributor talks about it on one of the old CCC conferences on their media server. If you want to learn about how to manage open source, Oracle's track record is a prime example of how not to.

ozim 2y ago
That’s the example how lawyers would manage open source.
bee_rider 2y ago
It is a shame that the OpenOffice name can’t be applied to LibreOffice. OpenOffice was a much better name, imo.
- yellowapple 2y ago
  Now that it's in the Apache Foundation's hands, my hope is that OO and LO will make amends and merge back together, like what happened with OpenWRT and LEDE. Given how many years they've diverged that might not be possible from a technical standpoint, but at least from a branding standpoint it'd be an improvement.
iforgotpassword 2y ago
Isn't there strong beef between the remaining OO maintainers and the LO folks? It basically prevented LO from just being merged back into OO, instead we got that years-long confusion where non-tech people would download the horribly outdated OO and be like "wow this sucks imma go with MSO!"
- cookiengineer 2y ago
  Yeah, I would assume that there's still beef between both parties, and I can kind of understand that. If you're getting a cease and desist letter because of some trademark bullshit for your open source forks... then I'd be pissed too. The way Oracle treated the developer community was pretty insane to be honest. Some links for others to read-up: Press Announcement for "Oracle Open Office" which wasn't open anymore: - https://web.archive.org/web/20101217212955/https://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/195766 https://web.archive.org/web/20101217212955/https://www.oracl... Oracle trying to upsell Standard Editions and Enterprise Editions: - https://web.archive.org/web/20100924092655/http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/open-office/open-office-170241.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100924092655/http://www.oracle... Announcement of the Document Foundation (Oct 2010, before Oracle's announcement in Dec 2010): - https://web.archive.org/web/20101001004543/http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq https://web.archive.org/web/20101001004543/http://www.docume... IBM being the reason that Oracle donates Open Office to Apache Foundation due to them pointing out to Oracle that their copyleft license agreement with Sun invalidates Oracle's proprietary claims: - https://web.archive.org/web/20131207051759/http://www.h-online.com/open/features/OpenOffice-splits-and-pirouettes-1270296.html https://web.archive.org/web/20131207051759/http://www.h-onli... - https://web.archive.org/web/20110603142320/http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/what-the-heck-is-happening-with-openoffice-update/9025 https://web.archive.org/web/20110603142320/http://www.zdnet....

ozim 2y ago

That’s the example how lawyers would manage open source.

bee_rider 2y ago

It is a shame that the OpenOffice name can’t be applied to LibreOffice. OpenOffice was a much better name, imo.

yellowapple 2y ago
Now that it's in the Apache Foundation's hands, my hope is that OO and LO will make amends and merge back together, like what happened with OpenWRT and LEDE. Given how many years they've diverged that might not be possible from a technical standpoint, but at least from a branding standpoint it'd be an improvement.

iforgotpassword 2y ago

Isn't there strong beef between the remaining OO maintainers and the LO folks? It basically prevented LO from just being merged back into OO, instead we got that years-long confusion where non-tech people would download the horribly outdated OO and be like "wow this sucks imma go with MSO!"

cookiengineer 2y ago
Yeah, I would assume that there's still beef between both parties, and I can kind of understand that. If you're getting a cease and desist letter because of some trademark bullshit for your open source forks... then I'd be pissed too. The way Oracle treated the developer community was pretty insane to be honest. Some links for others to read-up: Press Announcement for "Oracle Open Office" which wasn't open anymore: - https://web.archive.org/web/20101217212955/https://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/195766 https://web.archive.org/web/20101217212955/https://www.oracl... Oracle trying to upsell Standard Editions and Enterprise Editions: - https://web.archive.org/web/20100924092655/http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/open-office/open-office-170241.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100924092655/http://www.oracle... Announcement of the Document Foundation (Oct 2010, before Oracle's announcement in Dec 2010): - https://web.archive.org/web/20101001004543/http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq https://web.archive.org/web/20101001004543/http://www.docume... IBM being the reason that Oracle donates Open Office to Apache Foundation due to them pointing out to Oracle that their copyleft license agreement with Sun invalidates Oracle's proprietary claims: - https://web.archive.org/web/20131207051759/http://www.h-online.com/open/features/OpenOffice-splits-and-pirouettes-1270296.html https://web.archive.org/web/20131207051759/http://www.h-onli... - https://web.archive.org/web/20110603142320/http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/what-the-heck-is-happening-with-openoffice-update/9025 https://web.archive.org/web/20110603142320/http://www.zdnet....