OpenOffice Is Dying (And IBM Won't Help) 298
jfruhlinger writes "OpenOffice.org, now separate both from corporate sponsor Oracle and the Document Foundation's LibreOffice, is in trouble, with its team putting out a dramatic press release detailing the organization's trouble. One missing player in all this is IBM, who has backed OpenOffice.org in the past. One possible reason for Big Blue's silence is that it might be a prelude to the killing of Lotus Symphony, its OpenOffice-based suite."
The Apache Software Foundation, on the other hand, insists OpenOffice.org is not at risk.
Wow, let's go sensational! (Score:2, Informative)
If you want to be sensational, then yes: OpenOffice.org as a project is dead. Oracle killed it. Deal with it, get over it, whatever it takes to get you through the day.
But Apache has this great ApacheOpenOffice podling thing that's doing great, and has inherited both most of the OOo code, as well as all of the OpenOffice.org logos, brand, and trademarks.
So here's hoping people are willing to look at this new Apache Licensed version of the old OpenOffice.org suite!
P.S. Note comments on the other article and public statements on ooo-dev@ mailing that show IBM'ers working on the project as part of their dayjobs. Who knows how far the commitment will go, but there are certainly some of them there already.
Dropping Lotus Symphony? Says who? (Score:4, Informative)
This article links to another article whose authour is just SPECULATING that IBM may be dropping Lotus Symphony. I can find no evidence that IBM has said any such thing, nor can I even find any leaked information to support this.
Conclusion? Yet another unsubstantiated blog post promoted to the front page of Slashdot with no fact checking. And people wonder why the readership of /. is in decline....
Conflating two different organizations (Score:5, Informative)
The article is conflating the Team OpenOffice, e.V. non profit with the OpenOffice.org open source project.
Team OpenOffice, e.V, was the fundraising arm of the OpenOffice.org project, set up as a non profit so they could legally raise funds for things like conferences. It was always independent of the open source project.
The OpenOffice.org open source project, the code, the trademarks, the domain name and the website, have moved to Apache, where work continues: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/ [apache.org]
It looks like the Team OpenOffice, e.V. guys are publishing alarmist material in order to raise money. That is a standard fundraising technique. What about the children, the baby seals, the environment? Who will save them now that the big bad oil companies/loggers/tech corporations that are out to get them. Send money now or the kitten dies.
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dropping Lotus Symphony? Says who? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ah. Ok. (Score:5, Informative)
My main problem with OpenOffice dying, and continued development on LibreOffice, is that it took years to get the name of OpenOffice recognized and somewhat widely used. With LibreOffice you throw that brand recognition away, which will make it a much more niche product.
Re:So? (Score:2, Informative)
There already was a split, just not in name. Most linux distributions were actually shipping go-oo, which was nothing more than a community-maintained collection of patches that Sun refused to incorporate. After Oracle took over, the processes (both governance and patch submission) became even less transparent. This in itself would not have been a problem, some struggles resulting from the merger could have been forgiven. But when Oracle kicked some community members from the steering committee (as in, kindly urged them to vacate their position), they dug their own grave.
Re:So? (Score:3, Informative)