4 ms·

I know this may fall on deaf ears, but couldn't you people join forces and create ONE open-source office suite? We now have LibreOffice and OpenOffice, and hist

by lutusp 14y ago

I know this may fall on deaf ears, but couldn't you people join forces and create ONE open-source office suite? We now have LibreOffice and OpenOffice, and history tells us this trend can only get worse over time. I'm waiting with trepidation for the moment when the LibreOffice and Openoffice document formats become mutually incompatible. When that happens, Microsoft will win again -- not by being better, just by being bigger and by not splitting into competing fragments.

aroman 14y ago
You do realize these two projects were together, right? LibreOffice forked off from OpenOffice in 2010. And for, at the time, good reasons.[1] [1] imho
- smnrchrds 14y ago
  The reasons they forked were good at the time they did it. They knew Oracle doesn't play well with open-source and they needed to be proactive. They didn't want to let Oracle kill OpenOffice the same way it killed OpenSolaris. But now that OpenOffice intellectual property including trademark is controlled by the Apache Foundation, not Oracle, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't reunite and collaborate.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Because: a. The LibreOffice guys have, for the past several years, built up their own infrastructure and community, b. The LibreOffice devs have done significant work on improving OpenOffice, c. Because the cultures seem very different, and there are AFAIK, a number of people in the Apache OpenOffice project who don't get along with the members of the LibreOffice project. I'm contributing to the LO project now, and I have to say it's an awesome community to be working with.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > You do realize these two projects were together, right? Yes, of course -- as with most fragmented projects that were once a single project. My understanding was that, for a time, Oracle appeared to be a threat to the free goals of OpenOffice, so the split made sense. But no more.
h2s 14y ago
> I know this may fall on deaf ears, but couldn't you > people join forces and create ONE open-source office > suite Most people have already joined forces to create one open-source office suite. It's called LibreOffice. As far as I'm aware, the vast majority of developers who used to work on OpenOffice now work on LibreOffice. OpenOffice is a brand that survives on the fumes in its fuel tank. I still occasionally catch semi-technical people (tech management types etc) recommending OpenOffice, but invariably it's because they haven't heard of LibreOffice and were unaware that it's the default in most distros these days.

by lutusp 14y ago

aroman 14y ago

You do realize these two projects were together, right? LibreOffice forked off from OpenOffice in 2010. And for, at the time, good reasons.[1] [1] imho

smnrchrds 14y ago
The reasons they forked were good at the time they did it. They knew Oracle doesn't play well with open-source and they needed to be proactive. They didn't want to let Oracle kill OpenOffice the same way it killed OpenSolaris. But now that OpenOffice intellectual property including trademark is controlled by the Apache Foundation, not Oracle, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't reunite and collaborate.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  Because: a. The LibreOffice guys have, for the past several years, built up their own infrastructure and community, b. The LibreOffice devs have done significant work on improving OpenOffice, c. Because the cultures seem very different, and there are AFAIK, a number of people in the Apache OpenOffice project who don't get along with the members of the LibreOffice project. I'm contributing to the LO project now, and I have to say it's an awesome community to be working with.
lutusp 14y ago
> You do realize these two projects were together, right? Yes, of course -- as with most fragmented projects that were once a single project. My understanding was that, for a time, Oracle appeared to be a threat to the free goals of OpenOffice, so the split made sense. But no more.

h2s 14y ago

> I know this may fall on deaf ears, but couldn't you > people join forces and create ONE open-source office > suite Most people have already joined forces to create one open-source office suite. It's called LibreOffice. As far as I'm aware, the vast majority of developers who used to work on OpenOffice now work on LibreOffice. OpenOffice is a brand that survives on the fumes in its fuel tank. I still occasionally catch semi-technical people (tech management types etc) recommending OpenOffice, but invariably it's because they haven't heard of LibreOffice and were unaware that it's the default in most distros these days.