History of Software Forks Favors LibreOffice 149
jfruhlinger writes "The forking of LibreOffice from the OpenOffice.org project, followed by Oracle's donation of OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation, has been something of a bumpy road. But if history is any guide, it's the fork, LibreOffice, that might have the brighter future."
Just look at the cleanups (Score:5, Interesting)
LibreOffice has already undertaken massive cleanups of OpenOffice.org code. It's pretty obvious which one will survive. Also one doesn't have a stupid TLD in the name (although the other is a bit freetard for my tastes).
Bad strategic moves by Oracle (Score:3, Interesting)
1. If they were going to release it into the wild at the end, they should have done so at the beginning.
2. They fail to understand the advantage that MS Office integration brings in MS's SQL Server and other server strategy.
OpenOffice is the one thing that MS sales reps really hate. A few million investment can have a big impact on MS's bottom line.
There's one good think Apache will do (Score:5, Interesting)
Apache will provide the LibreOffice folks with a copy of the OpenOffice code base that is under a license which removes any possible obligation they might ever have to Oracle regarding the code, unless they do something incredibly stupid (like failing to attribute or reproduce the license at all as Katzer did in Jacobsen v. Katzer). LibreOffice can choose to use that code base or not.
If we really want to lay blame, it's not just Oracle's. Sun Microsystems didn't ever achieve a viable community for OpenOffice. There were operational and technical reasons, but the one that might have been most important was the requirement to sign your copyright over to a company that might take the work private the next day, with no quid-pro-quo at all.
In 1999 or so, Danise Cooper called me to explain what Sun would do with OpenOffice. I explained at that time that they needed to have some sort of quid-pro-quo for code donors, even if it was only a covenant that Sun would keep their own development available under a free software license for some time or remove the contribution from their version. This was not implemented. It was difficult for independent developers to see a reason to work with Sun.
Libre Office is superior. (Score:5, Interesting)
LibreOffice is superior to Open Office in my experience. It is faster, It opens complex M$ Office documents and complex power point presentations more cleanly (assuming you have fonts installed.) It is a definite upgrade from OO.org. One problem. OO.org has brand recognition. Big time. It established itself as a market force. LibreOffice will need to establish that all over again.
Re:Bad strategic moves by Oracle (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what people used to say about WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. Guess what? Things changed.
If you recall, MS Word (before 1995) was "one of them" - on par with WP and Lotus [Excel] and AmiPro. But then MS did something that created a lot of value to the user - they created an office suite. Now you could insert Excel into Word (and everything into everything, as long as they are OLE-enabled.)
This is exactly what I was talking about - a considerable, valuable innovation that instantly put MS Office above all other contenders. Note that Outlook, however good or bad at that time, was also included. This really made it an office in a box - and everything worked together. PHBs loved it, and money flowed to MS coffers, quite deservedly.
So yes, things change. But they don't change without reason. OpenOffice has to deliver such a reason, and then it will be an instant hit in the market.
Re:Bad strategic moves by Oracle (Score:4, Interesting)
LibreOffice is already ridiculously better than OOo on Windows and (IMO) feels nicer on Linux. Not as smooth a user experience as MS Office, but it's clear there's now someone involved who actually gives a hoot about Windows users' experience. (And I'm amazed that, from the observable evidence, OOo clearly didn't.)